Saturday, August 3, 2013

WHERE BARRY FELL – PICTURE CANYON:

Picture Canyon, Baca County, Colorado.

Photograph: Peter Faris, 21 Sept., 1986.

Back in the 1970s there was considerable public interest in the
diffusionist theories of Barry Fell. Fell believed that many rock art
inscriptions and images had been produced by pre-Columbian travelers from the
Old World.

“Barry Fell
(born Howard Barraclough Fell)( June 6, 1917 - April 21, 1994) was a professor
of invertebrate zoology at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. While his
primary professional research included starfish and sea urchins, Fell is also known
for his controversial work in New World epigraphy, arguing that various
inscriptions in the Americas are best explained by extensive pre-Columbian
contact with Old World civilizations.” Wikipedia.

In my early years as a rock art researcher I felt I should read all
sides of an argument in order to be able to fairly judge it for myself so I
undertook the task of reading some of the writings of Barry Fell. As an aside
here I should add that I do believe that there was pre-Columbian contact
between the Old and New Worlds. We have physical proof of Viking presence at
l’anse aux meadows in Newfoundland dating to around AD 1000. Additionally, I
have posted about the hundreds of botanical and zoological indications outlined
and explained in the book World Trade and Biological Exchanges Before 1492,
by Carl L. Johannessen and John L. Sorenson, (2004). I have no trouble
accepting limited contact, and even exchange, between peoples of the Old and
New Worlds before Columbus. I just cannot accept the claims of diffusionists
that so many of the cultural traits of New World peoples came from the dozens
or hundreds of expeditions of Celts, Egyptians, Phoenicians, and everyone else
they can think of roaming back and forth across North America leaving carved
images and inscriptions.

Picture Canyon, Baca County, Colorado.

Photograph: Peter Faris, 21 Sept., 1986.

As I said above I tried to read enough of Barry Fells’ writings to
understand his premise and be able to give a fair evaluation to his claims. I
read much of his writing and I have to confess that it would be really exciting
to just open up to his conclusions. If I had just gone with it I could have
been in on so many of the exciting discoveries that Barry Fell and his
disciples claimed. Unfortunately, I found myself constrained by judgment and
truth, and just could not adopt his conclusions. Part of the problem was the
fact that I could visit some of the sites he translated and see for myself.

Cast by Gloria Farley, in America B.C.,

Barry

Fell,

Demeter Press, 1976, p.182.

In 1986 I spent some time in Picture Canyon, in Baca County,
southeastern Colorado. There I visited the petroglyph that Barry Fell had
translated, and explained as follows, based upon a casting from a mold made by
Gloria Farley: “Chief Ras left
this bilingual autograph to record his exploration of the Cimarron River in
Oklahoma, probably around 500 B.C. Gloria Farley obtained this latex impression
under a rock overhand on the river cliffs. Above right the Egyptian hieratic
letters T-P (Chief). The eye symbol itself is the Egyptian hieratic word R-S
(“Watchful”). The two Libyan letters cut into the eye sign, also spell R-S.
Bilingual Egypto-Libyan inscriptions in North America probably reflect the
lasting influence of the Libyan pharaohs upon the Egyptian navy. In later
centuries when the Greek Ptolemies ruled Egypt, their Libyan queens continued
to promote the interest of the navy, still manned largely by Libyan mariners.
Malcolm D. Pearson” (Fell 1976:182)

First, the image is not on the cliffs of the Cimarron River,
this symbol is actually in Picture Canyon, in Baca County, Colorado, and it is
found a number of miles from the Cimarron River cliffs in New Mexico. Second,
the actual image is somewhat different than the supposed casting which one
would expect to be an exact replica of the original. Notice that the right end
of the image is flattened, not sharply pointed as in the “casting”, also,
please note that the actual shapes of Fells’
“two Libyan letters cut into the
eye sign”, which ”also spell R-S” are
not the same in the photograph as on the “impression”. There are also a number of other markings on the panel, including
a group of pits within the right side of the “eye” that do not appear to be on Gloria’s “impression” at all.

Additionally, the lines of the “eye” and the “Libyan
letters” in the casting are much sharper edged than the lines of the
original, all of which suggests to me that the so-called “impression” has been
worked over with tools to achieve the end they desired. Finally, we can see
that the background surface of the “impression” that was supposedly made with
latex directly from the surface of the rock does not match the actual
background surface of the rock face itself. In any scientific context that I
know of that is called falsification of data and is considered to be a fraudulent
practice at the very least. So, back in the beginning – this is where Barry
Fell. I will continue this exploration in the future.

Note: I wish I could claim to be clever enough to have
originated the title “Where Barry Fell” for myself, but I cannot. This title
came from a slide program debunking some of Fells' claims that was assembled by Bill McGlone back in the early 1990s, in
cooperation with Phil Leonard.

2 comments:

It looks like the mold was taken with the mold material inside a plastic bag, which produced wrinkles and diminished some of the finer details perhaps? Also wondering if weathering could have been responsible for the rt. side of the "eye" disappearing? That eye edge, though, doesn't match up with the adjacent carving, but perhaps they had to wrap the "bag" around the corner there to pick that up? It would of course look further away once laid out flat. Just sayin' ...

Peter Farris' photo seems to be taken from a sharp angle whereas Farland had to take the impression exactly right on at a 90 degree angle. Also what does "Miles from the Cimarron River" mean?Anything more than one mile would be miles.

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"We can be nearly certain that we who look upon the rock art today were not the intended audience. But they have meanings for us non-the-less. Whether that meaning is part of our archaeological studies, a part of national or regional heritage or simply an appreciation of their aesthetic beauty, we are their inheritors and it is up to us to preserve them with care and dignity." D. Russel Micnhimer, 2012.

CONTACT US AT: ARCHEOFARIS@YAHOO.COM, you can make comments, suggest subjects for future postings, or send a photo as an attachment to your e-mail for consideration as a future Pix Pick (submitting your photo is understood to include permission for use). NOTE: The previous e-mail address, rockartblogmail@yahoo.com, was apparently blocked by Yahoo for some unknown reason so I can no longer access it. If you have tried to communicate with me through that address I probably have not received your message.

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About Me

30+ year member of the Colorado Archaeological Society,
Founder and former President of the Colorado Rock Art Association,
Member of the Arapahoe County Cultural Commission, President of Institute for Archeoesthetics.
2013 recipient of the Ivol Hagar Award for outstanding service to the Colorado Archaeological Society, and a 2013 Colorado Rock Art Association Chapter Achievement Award. Member of Archaeology and Historic Preservation Committee and also Programs Committee of History Colorado.
Arapahoe County Cultural Council.